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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 070.92 EAN: 9780375759352 ISBN: 0375759352 Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 256 Publication Date: September 30, 2003 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Release Date: September 30, 2003 Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks Editorial Review: Amazon.com: In his earlier books, TV news anchor Tom Brokaw has leaned heavily on the experiences of others to remember and define what he calls "the Greatest Generation"--those who came of age during World War II and its aftermath. In A Long Way Home Brokaw turns inward to focus on his own experiences growing up in South Dakota, his early years a broadcaster working in a then-novel medium, and his still-deep connection to the Midwestern people, places, and values that shaped him. In this bluntly effective and homespun memoir, Brokaw argues that, no matter how far one may travel--say, to New York and through five decades of a successful broadcast journalism career--it's possible to remain a true creature of the heartlands. It's a message that is likely to resonate most emphatically with those of Brokaw's generation, though its basic premise can be applied more universally as well. --David Bombeck Product Description: In A Long Way from Home, Tom Brokaw describes his childhood and youth in South Dakota, and the people and places in the American heartland of the 1940s and 1950s that continue to shape his life today. As he reflects on the American experience as he lived and observed it during the central decades of the twentieth century, Brokaw writes of his parents’ lives during the Great Depression, his boyhood along the Missouri River, the happy days of his adolescence in Yankton, and his early years in broadcast journalism on the cusp of the turbulent 1960s. As he recounts his own American pilgrimage, Tom Brokaw also explores what brought him and so many Americans to lead lives a long way from home, yet forever affected by it. Download Description: In this beautiful memoir, Tom Brokaw writes of America and of the American experience. From his parents¿ life in theThirties, on to his boyhood along the Missouri River and on the prairies of South Dakota in the Forties, into his early journalism career in the Fifties and the tumultuous Sixties, up to the present, this personal story is a reflection on America in our time. Tom Brokaw writes about growing up and coming of age in the heartland, and of the family, the people, the culture and the values that shaped him then and still do today. His father, Red Brokaw, a genius with machines, followed the instincts of Tom's mother Jean, and took the risk of moving his small family from an Army base to Pickstown, South Dakota, where Red got a job as a heavy equipment operator in the Army Corps of Engineers' project building the Ft. Randall dam along the Missouri River. Tom Brokaw describes how this move became the pivotal decision in their lives, as the Brokaw family, along with others after World War II, began to live out the American Dream: community, relative prosperity, middle class pleasures and good educations for their children. "Along the river and in the surrounding hills, I had a Tom Sawyer boyhood," Brokaw writes; and as he describes his own pilgrimage as it unfolded¿from childhood to love, marriage, the early days in broadcast journalism, and beyond¿he also reflects on what brought him and so many Americans of his generation to lead lives a long way from home, yet forever affected by it. From the Hardcover edition. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - BORING STORIES FROM BROKAW'S YOUTH DIMINISH HIS REPUTATIONTom Brokaw must think that people care about every facet of his dull life--because he has elaborated on it in so much boring detail in this book that even Brokaw fans will throw their hands up after hearing another insignificant story and say "who cares." Sadly, he comes across as a person who considered himself better than others and was incredibly insensitive when it came to class status. He often mentions in the book whether someone is "working class" and he claims that in high school ... Read More Rating:  - Shared MomentsTom Brokaw has always projected to his viewers a caring, sincere presence as he outlined the happenings of the day in our nation and around the world. Even if the news he broadcasted was sad or shocking he gave us the feeling that we could get through this together. This book offers the same warmth and sincerity in describing my similar experiences in growing up during and after WWII. Rating: - excellentBeen there and done that. Refreshing read! Stirred up many old memories and recollections. Rating:  - Simple but decentOne reviewer called this book "for simpletons by a simpleton." Well, as I have very little respect for today's mainstream media, especially Dan Rather and Katie Couric, Brokaw, though preachy, is better than most. This book is a simple book, but it's also pleasant and does lend insight into his modest upbringing in South Dakota---far different from what the elites usually value. I read it while I drove cross country, which is probably why I gave it 3 stars, rather than 2, as I appreciated ... Read More Rating: - Roots are essentialBrokaw gives a seemingly honest and direct account of his formative years. His respect and admiration for his parents gives him guidelines for a life in the limelight where it may be easy to loose one's footing. It is interesting to get a glimpse of the life in the heartland of the U. S. in the forties and fifties when so much of my own perception of the U. S. from a Scandinavian viewpoint was formed. Congratulations to Tom Brokaw for a fine book! |
